Recently entered into the Dota 2 field by signing Team Tickles ahead of the Dota Pro Circuit Western Europe Regional Finals, Gaimin Gladiators have already secured the first tournament victory.
After a six week league play where they got bested only by two squads, one of them being Team Liquid, and after being sent to the lower bracket in the Regional Finals by the same Liquid, Gaimin Gladiators took full revenge in the grand finals.
Gladiators started the finals day with a fast 2-0 win over OG to ensure a rematch with Liquid and despite having a very one sided game against the former with what seems one of the strongest combos of the patch, Io-Storm Spirit and they were allowed to run it in the grand finals as well. Not from the first game though.
Team Liquid
vs
Gaimin Gladiators
Io-Storm Spirit was taken out of the table in game one by Liquid, however, that didn’t stop Gladiators from riding the momentum created in the lower bracket finals. They went for a Templar Assassin carry and Ember Spirit in the mid lane, while Liquid looked to cut through them with a minus Armor strategy of their own, featuring a position 4 Weaver and an offlane Slardar. Liquid had a peak moment around the 10 minute mark when they managed to take down the Ember Spirit, but past the 20 minute mark they couldn’t keep the pace anymore with the rather mobile line-up of Gamin Gladiators.
Going into the second game, Liquid took the TA for themselves and placed it in the same carry position, but chose to run it greedier, with a rushed Aghanim’s Scepter and no Black King Bar versus Gladiator’s Luna, Invoker, Timbersaw trio core. The game spiralled out of control in Gladiators favour once again, however, the high ground push wasn’t as easy as it should have been for a Luna due to perfect Ice Paths and Macropyre coming out from Aydin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi’s Jakiro. The prolonged base defense allowed Team Liquid to actually repel Gladiators and even force them to game-changing mistakes. Two deaths in a row on Luna in the last five minutes of the game opened up the window for Liquid to even the series.
With the best-of-five grand finals becoming a best-of-three affair, Team Liquid decided to let the Io-Spirit duo go through and got heavily punished for it. Nonetheless, Samuel "Boxi" Svahn ensured an explosive start for his team on his position 4 Weaver, but the early vessel secured with his bug kills were not enough to stop the Storm train.
Except for his two deaths from the first 15 minutes of the game, and the loss of his Bottle, Miroslav "BOOM" Bičan didn’t give anything away anymore to Liquid and proved to be an unstoppable power.
And despite his exquisite game three, he was allowed to play Storm the fourth game as well, again paired with Io.
Liquid’s stubbornness in thinking that they can beat the combo cost them the grand finals, which at the end of the Winter Tour puts them tied in DPC points with Gaimin Gladiators.
For winning the Regional Finals, Gaimin Gladiators got 250 DPC points on top of the 130 earned by placing second in the Regional League, while Team Liquid got 130 points for finishing runners up in the Regional Finals, but earned 300 points for placing first in the league.
Western Europe Regional Finals standings
1st place: $50,000 & 250 DPC Points 
Gaimin Gladiators
2nd place: $25,000 & 130 DPC Points 
Team Liquid
3rd place: $15,000 
OG
4th place: $10, 000 
Tundra Esports
Headline image courtesy of Gaimin Gladiators
